Resources

What is democracy? Freedom, equality, participation? Everyone has his or her own definition. Across the world countries have a least the minimum trappings of democracy, but for many this is just the beginning. Following decades of US-backed dictatorships, civil wars and structural adjustment policies in the South, and corporate control, electoral corruption and fraud in the North, representative politics in the Americas is in crisis. Citizens are now choosing to redefine democracy under their own terms: local, direct and participatory. In Brazil, they have installed participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre, in Venezuela President Chavez came to power with the promise of granting direct participation to the people, and all across the Americas social movements and constitutional assemblies are taking authority away from the ruling elites and putting power into the hands of their members and citizens. This DVD features interviews with Eduardo Galeano, Amy Goodman, Emir Sader, Martha Harnecker, Ward Churchill and Leonardo Avritzer as well as cooperative and community members, elected representatives, academics and activists from Brazil, Canada, Venezuela, Argentina, United States, Uruguay, Chile, Colombia and more. It takes us on a journey across the Americas in an attempt to answer the question "What is Democracy?"

Despite a thriving economy, the tranquil city of Mombasa in Kenya suffers from a chronic shortage of decent social housing. This short documentary video tells the story of how tenants from Mizizma, Tudor and Changamwe estates in Mombasa formed a joint shelter committee to demand better housing services from their local council. The video has been co-produced by the Institute of Development Studies and the ILISHE Trust, a non-governmental organisation based in Mombasa.|Also available on video in NTSC format, on CD-ROM and in Kiswahili.|Author's summary

These two CD-ROMs present a review of three yearÆs action research that has been undertaken in ActionAidÆs country programmes in Malawi and Sierra Leone. The aim of the research was to test the idea that poor communities are left outside the loop of negotiations about their own futures, because of barriers presented by language, literacy and access to those in power. The objective of the research has been to facilitate resource-poor communities to analyse and represent their own needs and priorities. Video was used by communities (in Mwakhundi, Malawi, and Freetown and Kambia, Sierra Leone) to form Community Alliances (CAs) around key issues with others like themselves. The CAs took their tapes to negotiate with government and donors. The action research tested a cyclical methodology focussed at representation through video. Each CD presents the research experiences of one of the case study countries. They include the video tapes that the CAs used to represent their needs to government and the responses they received.

This video accompanies the handbook " Teach Yourself Citizens Juries". It comprises two films: one about jurors from Lancashire, UK, talking about their citizens juries on youth, alcohol and illegal drugs; the other is a record of a citizens jury organised by older people in Tyneside exploring the challenges facing those who suffer falls and looking at potential policy changes. The video also covers: choosing a subject, setting the question for the jury, recruiting jurors, jury members questionin the witnesses, and maximising results.